Arch Linux

Alastor7879

Member

Registered: 2023-10-21

Posts: 2

GDM failed to load due to undefined symbol

I have an error with GDM on startup, here is a snippet of the journal

Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux audit[1]: SERVICE_STOP pid=1 uid=0 auid=4xxxxxxxxxx ses=4xxxxxxxxx msg='unit=gdm comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux systemd[1]: Stopped GNOME Display Manager.
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux systemd[1]: Starting GNOME Display Manager...
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux gdm[415]: /usr/bin/gdm: symbol lookup error: /usr/bin/gdm: undefined symbol: g_string_free_and_steal
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux systemd[1]: gdm.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=127/n/a
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux systemd[1]: gdm.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager.
Oct 21 11:39:16 archlinux audit[1]: SERVICE_START pid=1 uid=0 auid=4xxxxxxxxxxx ses=4xxxxxxxx msg='unit=gdm comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=failed'
Oct 21 11:39:17 archlinux systemd[1]: gdm.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.

Last edited by Alastor7879 (2023-10-21 16:49:34)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,727

Re: GDM failed to load due to undefined symbol

With what version of glib2? Sounds like a partial update issue.

Alastor7879

Member

Registered: 2023-10-21

Posts: 2

Re: GDM failed to load due to undefined symbol

glib2 2.70.0-3

Tried gdm -d and got:

 gdm: /usr/lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.38' not found (required by gdm)

gdm: /usr/lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.38' not found (required by /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0)

gdm: /usr/lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.38' not found (required by /usr/lib/libgio-2.0.so.0)

UPDATE: I have now ran pacman -S glibc

It installed and I restarted and now my screen shows “Oh no! Something went wrong.”
“A problem has occurred and the system can’t recover. Please contact a system administrator”

Last edited by Alastor7879 (2023-10-21 17:24:47)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,074

Re: GDM failed to load due to undefined symbol

Yeah, gnome is great at reporting helpful error messages /sarcasm

glib2 2.70.0-3 is from Dez 02, 2021 and something (GDM) is trying to access libc 2.38 from this august.
Stop conducting partial updates (assuming this frankenversioned mess is actually archlinux) and run a full system update.

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc